Even though Thanksgiving is still a couple weeks away, stores and people are already focused on Christmas. And this week the holiday mood gets a little boost with the 25th anniversary re-release of Home Alone, which has its final two showings today in select theaters.

In honor of that milestone, an oral history has been put together on the making of Home Alone, revealing one interesting tidbit. Director Chris Columbus only ended up being at the helm of Home Alone after Chevy Chase treated him like garbage in early meetings for another holiday comedy classic, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Read More »

If you want to see Home Alone in theaters this weekend, today is the first day you can head to select theaters for the Fathom Event 25th anniversary re-release of the holiday comedy. You’ll also have another chance on Wednesday, November 11th, and you can find out the times and participating theaters right here.

But if you don’t feel like Home Alone warrants a return to theaters, or you just want to experience the John Hughes written story from the comforts of your home in a new way, you might want to pick up the new Home Alone book which turns the movie into a wonderfully illustrated Christmas tale. If you want to see what it looks like before making any decisions, we have a trailer for the book and images of some of the pages for you to check out. Read More »

There’s been a lot of focus on the anniversary of Back to the Future this year, but plenty of other beloved films have anniversaries to celebrate too. In fact, this year marks the special anniversary of one modern holiday classic that audiences watch every year around Christmastime.

Home Alone is the movie that skyrocketed child actor Macaulay Culkin to fame, with a big help from a fun script by John Hughes and kid-friendly director Chris Columbus. It might be hard to believe, but this year marks the 25th anniversary of the holiday comedy that turned Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern into a couple of punching bags, and to celebrate, a Home Alone 25h anniversary theatrical re-release is happening in November. Read More »

While the John Hughes comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off may be a classic, it’s hardly worthy of getting a video game adaptation. However, that hasn’t stopped the folks at CineFix from giving the comedy starring Matthew Broderick the 8-Bit Cinema treatment, turning the high school hooky shenanigans into an old school video game.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 8-Bit Cinema hits all the right notes, literally, because there’s some awesome 8-bit soundtrack versions of the songs from the movie. Oh, and the very short, abridged versions of entire scenes are pretty amusing. Read More »

At the Ant-Man junket over the weekend, I had the opportunity to chat with Marvel head Kevin Feige. One of the questions I asked was about the Marvel Studios-produced upcoming Spider-Man reboot. If Captain America: The Winter Solider was a conspiracy thriller, and Ant-Man is a heist film, what can we expect for Spider-Man? Marvel has cleverly theorized that the key to preventing superhero overload at the multiplex is to set their stories inside other film genres. So what kind of film will the new Spider-Man movie be?

While in Las Vegas for CinemaCon 2015 last week, I got the opportunity to sit down with Chris Columbus, a screenwriter and director who had a dramatic effect on the cinema of my childhood, and yours. Lets do a list: Gremlins, Goonies, Young Sherlock Holmes, Adventures in Babysitting, Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Stepmom, and the first installments of the Harry Potter franchise. His latest film Pixels seems to be a return to the roots of his earlier days, and I’m personally excited to see it.

In my interview with Chris Columbus(who turns out to be a daily /Film reader) I ask him if he will ever return to writing original screenplays again like he did with Gremlins and Goonies. He explains how he got involved with Pixels, initially having not seen the viral short film which inspired the movie. He talks a bit about how the licensed video game characters became involved with the project and also talks about Pac Man creator Toru Iwatani‘s appearance in the film, not as himself (as seen in the trailer) but in a cameo role.

We learn whether or not there was any pressure to differentiate the movie from Ghostbusters, and Columbus talks about a return to the Amblin era of films, whether he’d ever direct one of John Hughes‘ unproduced screenplays, and he even gives us an update on the Gremlins reboot. Hit the jump to read my full Chris Columbus interview from CinemaCon 2015 in Las Vegas.

CineFix has released a video listing 9 things you didn’t know about the John Hughes/Chris Columbus Christmas classic Home Alone. The video is a mix of visible mistakes, an explanation of how they pulled of some of the film’s trademark stunts, the story behind that photo of Buzz’s girlfriend, an injury that left star Macaulay Culkin physically scared and much more. Like for instance did you know they only had John Candy on set for one day — due to schedule issues they shot all his scenes over the course of one 23-hour day. Hit the jump to watch the Home Alone trivia video for yourself.

TV networks may want to start checking with filmmakers before rushing ahead to remake their works. Earlier this week, a Say Anything… TV series was announced and then swiftly scrapped when Say Anything… movie director Cameron Crowe objected loudly and publicly. Now it’s possible ABC’s planned Uncle Buck reboot could meet the same fate.

While neither director John Hughes nor star John Candy are alive to offer their opinions on the project, their families are speaking up on their behalf. And long story short, they are not at all happy. Hit the jump to read their comments.

We get sent dozens of short films every week and while I try to watch most of them, the sad fact is that we don’t post as many short films as we use to. Sometimes a gem sticks out from the rest of the submissions and becomes an obvious choice. Noah immediately grabbed me, and even a few minutes into this story, I knew I would be posting it on /Film. I hope you find time to watch it.

/Film reader Walter Woodman sent in this short film titled Noah which he co-directed with Patrick Cederberg. The film just had it’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and is now available online for everyone to view. TIFF describes the film as:

In a story that plays out entirely on a teenager’s computer screen, Noah follows its eponymous protagonist as his relationship takes a rapid turn for the worse in this fascinating study of behaviour (and romance) in the digital age.

Without feeling forced or inorganic, the short perfectly delivers on the limiting structure of this clever and creative construct. The story feels so authentic and real, a snapshot of a young relationship in the current age of internet attention disorder and social networking. One of my friends, filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg, said it could be “this generations John Hughes movie”, and I think that description totally nails it. Of course, Hughes never made a found footage movie set inside a computer, but you’ll see what we mean. Watch the short right now, embedded after the jump.